Procurement of Pan-Defra Research Engagement Portal

Defra is the UK government department which is responsible for improving and protecting the environment. Defra aims to grow a green economy and sustain thriving rural communities, and also support the UK's world-leading food, farming and fishing industries. The Defra Research Evidence Portal project has been established to modernise the technology services that enable the delivery of the Defra organisations requirements to publish Defra’s research and development information and capabilities for open access publication, to support integrated discovery and exploitation of Defra Group R&D (Research and Development), facilitating evidence synthesis and to also manage publications and knowledge curation activity where required for staff only. Defra also has a requirement to publicly release its Research and Development (R&D) reports to modern, accessibility and timeliness standards, for open access dissemination and exploitation and reuse. Currently there are multiple assurance, publication processes and document storage facilities in use across the Defra group, many reliant on legacy technologies. Modern Research Data Management technology services offer publication capabilities and interoperability with data and analytics services to maximise the dissemination and potential exploitation of R&D both by Government, industry and publicly to speed innovation for growth and societal benefits. The Defra Library provides scientists, researchers, and policy makers, in Defra, Natural England and APHA (Animal and Plant Health Agency) with specialist library services. It also provides services to customers in other Defra group organisations on a call-off basis. The Defra Library provides a wide range of print and digital assets to users. A range of technology services are used to deliver these, however currently, the technology used is fragmented and incudes several legacy technology services and has not been historically associated with the assurance and publication of Defra produced R&D outputs (historically positioned within the Central Science Division, under the Chief Scientific Adviser, (CSA)).